KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Roys Report [Chicago IL]
May 8, 2024
By Rebecca Hopkins
A Kansas City prayer room with ties to disgraced International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC) Founder Mike Bickle, gathered Tuesday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of IHOPKC, despite the ministry’s ongoing sex abuse scandal.
Hope City, a prayer room, community center, and church, is led by Bickle’s sister, Lisa Stribling, and her husband, Ray. According to a leaked recording of the ceremony, Lisa Stribling and her son, Richy Bickle, spoke at the event. Stribling praised Bickle and upheld the so-called “prophetic history” of IHOPKC as a reason to keep the 24/7 prayer ministry going.
“It doesn’t matter if the lights are out and we have a candle, we’re going to be praying for revival until we see the things we’ve bled for come to pass,” said Stribling.
The event, which gathered more than 100 people also featured videos of disgraced “prophet” Bob Jones and Mike Bickle, explaining the prophetic history of IHOPKC.
Bickle claims that in 1982, God told Bickle that He would change the understanding and expression of Christianity in one generation. The next year, Jones reportedly came to Bickle with a message from God—that Bickle would lead young adults in a prayer and worship movement with strong ties to Asia. IHOPKC was officially formed more than a decade later, on May 7, 1999.
Leading worship for the Hope City event was Misty Edwards, who reportedly confessed in 2021 to a years-long affair with well-known worship leader Kevin Prosch. According to former IHOPKC staffer Brent Steeno, Edwards told him the affair began around 2014, when Prosch was still married to Bickle’s sister, Shelly Bickle.
Mike Bickle did not attend the service, according to former IHOPKC student Rich Matthews, who was at the ceremony. But Bickle’s wife, Diane Bickle, and sons, Luke and Paul Bickle, were there, Matthews told The Roys Report (TRR).
No one stated that Bickle has been accused of sexually abusing multiple women, including two who were minors, according to the recording of the service obtained by TRR. But Pastor Ray Mabion of Bethlehem Kingdom Center claimed at Hope City that Satan had tried to cut off IHOPKC’s “head” because of the global influence the prayer movement has had.
“Because of the prayers that have gone forth in this city, the enemy tried to come and destroy the tabernacle of faith,” Mabion said. “(T)he enemy tried to come and he tried to cut the head off of what God has done in prayer. But I tell you this right now, it’s not going to be forgotten. . . You can try to cut the head, but the head is not going to drop. It’s going to keep right on going because what God is doing is going to bring forth his purposes in Kansas City.”
Richy Bickle thanked many of IHOPKC’s leaders, including Misty Edwards’ mother, Donna Edwards, IHOPKC staff member, Executive Leadership Team Member Lenny LaGuardia, and former Executive Director Stuart Greaves.
Richy Bickle also thanked Allen Hood and the Dwayne Roberts family, who are members of an Advocate Group, which is calling for an independent investigation into Mike Bickle’s alleged abuses.
Richy Bickle also praised Mike Bickle’s sister, Tracey Bickle, director of Restoration and Recovery for IHOPKC, and “the Bickle family.”
“We do want to thank the Bickle family for laying down everything and saying yes to something that seemed so ridiculous at the time,” Richy Bickle said. “If you look back and somebody offered the things to me that were being offered to you guys, I would’ve run in the other direction. But you embraced it fully.”
A woman who gave a testimony talked of the Bickle family’s sacrifices, which drew applause.
“I just want to take a minute now and say thank you to the Bickle family,” the woman said. “I just want to say to the Bickles—thank you for the way you laid your life down. Thank you so much for just being faithful to the Lord because it not only affected your family and a city, but I believe it affected a generation.”
IHOPKC has previously stated that it has “permanently” separated from Mike Bickle. But Matthews, a former IHOPKC student, told TRR he believed this ceremony called that into question.
“The idea that IHOP is in any way clearly and permanently separated from Mike Bickle is absolutely ridiculous,” Matthews said. “The prophetic history was very soundly and strongly emphasized as a primary motivating factor for continuing.”
Last Sunday, IHOPKC’s Forerunner Church Pastor Isaac Bennett likewise mentioned the prophetic history his sermon. Bennett urged the church to hold onto this history in the midst of not knowing “what building we’re in” or the “name of the ministry.”
“We’re sitting here today seeing promises that have come to pass before our eyes,” Bennett said. “We can’t step away from this. I know that there’s confusion. I know that there’s pressure. The reason that we’re standing for God’s purposes isn’t because of IHOPKC or Bob Jones or Mike Bickle, it’s because it’s in the Word of God.”
Bennett’s sermon was met with skepticism on X.
“This morning @ihopkc’s Isaac Bennett rehashed all the same prophetic BS as his sexual predator mentor Mike Bickle,” wrote Matthew Hartke on X. “Watch how he engages in all the same doublespeak (“we’re doing this bc it’s in the word of God”) and manipulation (“we can’t back down from this”). Unconscionable!!!”
Austin Roberts, also on X, pointed to an irony of a prophecy believed about someone with a double life.
“One of the wildest parts of this, is Isaac pushing his belief in Bob, Paul and the PH despite Bob Jones and Paul Cain NOT discerning the true nature of Mike Bickle,” Roberts wrote. “Either Bob and Mike were in on it or they were clueless to Mike’s double life. Either way that’s a nail in the PH coffin – aside from its discrepancies, inconsistencies and unprovable (and disproven) claims.”
In Tuesday’s celebration, no one mentioned that Bickle or IHOPKC should repent, which was “disappointing” to Matthews.
“If anyone at that meeting yesterday would have been like, ‘This has been a time of pruning and this has been a time of repentance and we can come face to face with sin and abuse in our midst and the Lord is working it out. But we still believe He’s calling us to pray,’ that would be something,” Matthews said.
Rebecca Hopkins is a journalist based in Colorado.